As tufts of white smoke, pealing bells, and cheers in Rome announced that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected the 265th pope, several Roman Catholic leaders in New York joined in celebrating the nascent pontificate of Benedict XVI.

Although Edward Cardinal Egan acknowledged on NY1 last night that the papal conclave had consisted of “difficult days” marked by “tension and concern,” the archbishop of New York said in a statement that “the Lord has given us a kind and holy bishop of Rome who is, as well, one of the great theological minds of our time.”

Given Pope Benedict XVI’s age – he turned 78 on Saturday – and his theological, philosophical, and personal proximity to the late John Paul II, the election of Cardinal Ratzinger is interpreted by many as a desire among church leaders to continue the late pontiff’s legacy.

The bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio, said as much in his official statement: “As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict was a close collaborator with his predecessor, Pope John Paul, and understood the depth and breadth of his theological and philosophical teaching.”

“As our new pontiff, he will continue to guide the Church with the same wisdom,” the bishop added, praising Benedict as a “humble and learned man.”

Influential New York Catholic lay leaders, too, saw Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as an indication that the church would continue along the path charted for it by Benedict’s predecessor.

The president of the New York-based Catholic League, William Donohue, said he and his organization were “absolutely delighted” by the announcement.

While Cardinal Ratzinger’s orthodox theology has led him to be savaged by many commentators as an ultraconservative “hard-liner” insensitive to the concerns of average Catholics, Mr. Donohue said, a pope who would safeguard traditional Catholic teaching “is precisely what the College of Cardinals wanted, and that’s certainly what we would want here.”

It is not what less doctrinaire Catholics – especially those pushing for liberalization on matters like abortion, artificial birth control, the ordination of women, and priestly celibacy – wanted, however. From liberal Catholics who saw John Paul’s passing as an opportunity for significant change in the church, Mr. Donohue said, “We expect that the weeping and gnashing of teeth will begin soon, if it hasn’t already.”

It had already begun, at least at Fordham University in the Bronx. The co-director of the university’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, James Fisher, said many of the Catholic university’s faculty and students were startled, dismayed, and disappointed by Benedict’s election. Some Catholics, he added, would read the swiftness of Cardinal Ratzinger’s elevation “as signaling a much stronger conservative bloc than they reckoned with” in the church’s leadership.

While Mr. Fisher said he thought Benedict’s divisiveness would highlight the liberal-orthodox divisions within the church in America, young Catholics who disagree with the new pope’s teachings would probably greet his election with indifference, he said, because “they have already made their own self-styled Catholicism that works for them,” independent of the dictates from Rome.

To those alarmed by Benedict’s election, however, Mr. Fisher cautioned against judging a new papacy before it had even begun. The pontiff’s record as a cardinal – where he was tasked more with doctrinal and intellectual responsibilities than with the sort of pastoral ministry demanded of a pope – might not be an accurate indicator of how he would behave as Bishop of Rome, Mr. Fisher said.

Two influential Catholic clergymen and intellectuals who know Benedict personally, however, thought his past was indeed a useful indicator of the kind of pope Benedict would become.

A prominent New York Catholic thinker, the Reverend Richard John Neuhaus, said he had known Cardinal Ratzinger for 20 years, and, based on that experience, “could not imagine somebody better equipped by the Holy Spirit to lead the Catholic Church into the future.”

Rev. Neuhaus, who is editor of First Things, a New York-based journal of religion and culture, said that while many people might be unhappy with the cardinals’ selection because of Cardinal Ratzinger’s record, their displeasure would be only momentary. Their opposition to Benedict, Rev. Neuhaus told The New York Sun from Rome, was rooted in disagreement with the fundamental precepts of the church.

The director of the Office for Spiritual Development at the archdiocese of New York, the Reverend Benedict Groeschel, too, knows Benedict personally, and has taught some of his closest associates. His acquaintance with the pope, the Rev. Groeschel said, led him to be “very pleased” with his elevation.

Yet knowing Benedict, Rev. Groeschel said, he was dismayed that the new pontiff had “been very badly abused by the American media.” Hardly an authoritarian, Benedict was “a man of principle who doesn’t bow to the tides but is very, very fair,” Rev. Groeschel said. The new pope, he said, is scrupulous about acknowledging and examining both sides of any argument.

Rev. Groeschel said he was also concerned about misrepresentations of Benedict’s biography. While the teenage Joseph Ratzinger was forced into membership in the Hitler Youth, and drafted into the German army during World War II, with death his only alternative, he was vehemently anti-Nazi, the Rev. Groeschel said. When Hitler began drafting children into the infantry near the end of the war, the young Ratzinger was pressured to join the SS as well. He refused, and was beaten for doing so, Rev. Groeschel said. He deserted from the German army at his first opportunity, under penalty of death, in order to return home and resume his study for the priesthood, the Rev. Groeschel added.

If Rev. Groeschel was anxious to clarify Benedict’s past, another New York clergyman, the Reverend Gerald Murray, said he was looking forward to the new pontiff’s future.

The Rev. Murray, who is the pastor of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul on West 24th Street, said many New York Catholics were eagerly anticipating a papal emphasis on “restoring beauty and solemnity to the celebration of the Mass.” Cardinal Ratzinger, Rev. Murray said, “was big on authentic liturgical renewal,” particularly restoring the church’s Latin heritage, “and that’s going to be a big area for the new pope.”

Before departing for Rome for the conclave, Cardinal Egan had said one of the most important issues facing the church in New York was the health of the city’s Catholic schools. A businessman and influential donor and fund-raiser for New York Catholic schools, Peter Flanigan, said Cardinal Egan had every reason to be pleased with Benedict’s election.

“Knowing Egan well, and recognizing that Egan was very close to John Paul II and reflective of John Paul II’s philosophy, it’s clear to me that Ratzinger is the same,” Mr. Flanigan said, suggesting that friends of New York’s Catholic schools themselves had a friend in Benedict.

Mr. Donohue, too, said Benedict’s elevation would help the city’s Catholic schools and other areas of ecclesiastical life dependent upon more Catholics taking up religious vocations. Orthodoxy, he said, has proved the church’s most effective recruiting tool, as evidenced by the explosive growth of Catholicism in Latin America and Africa, where church leaders are more orthodox than their counterparts in North America and Europe.

Some Europeans in New York will be pleased by Cardinal Ratzinger’s election, regardless of their opinions about his theology – and without even being Catholic.

A spokesman for the German consulate in New York, Werner Schmidt, said of the election of Cardinal Ratzinger, who was born in Marktl am Inn, Germany: “It’s an honor; it makes us proud to have a German pope.

“We wish him all the best, and great strength in his work in promoting peace, reconciliation, and justice in the world,” Mr. Schmidt said.